When You're Gone
by MeredithGreyPotter1
Summary: MerDer. A post S3 one shot. Takes place the night of the wedding that wasn't. Meredith and Derek are in their respective homes and find themselves missing each other. What do they do, if anything? What will happen? Please R&R. Also posted at the GA boards


_**Disclaimer: So Grey's Anatomy isn't mine. Otherwise, this scene might just have possibly been slipped into the finale in order to give us hope… especially with that awful spoiler that's going around… ::runs away crying:: Anyway, on with the story!**_

_**Quick note, each set of lyrics signals a different POV change… just so you know!! Also, I strongly suggest that you listen to the song that this fic is named after. It's called "When You're Gone" by Avril Lavigne.  
**_

_I always needed time on my own,_

_I never thought I'd need you there when I cry,_

Meredith trudged into her house well after midnight. She hadn't wanted to leave Cristina alone, but she couldn't very well stay there. She just… couldn't. Watching her friend, her person, be so torn up about her fiancé walking away from her on her wedding day made her feel guilty about feeling empty after losing Derek. Technically she hadn't lost him, she'd left him. At the alter. A bitter laugh escaped her dry lips as she stood in her foyer, thinking about the events of the day. It had been fine, earlier that morning it had been fine. She'd been her. Well, no, everything hadn't been fine. She'd had so much on her mind. So much had happened to her within the last week or so, and she hadn't had any time to process it. At the beginning of the week she was in a relationship with her boyfriend, her wonderful, smart, charming, handsome, and good as all hell in bed boyfriend. She was an intern, she didn't have to worry about killing people on the OR table, at least not directly, and her best friend was getting married. Now, her world was falling out from underneath her feet. But what was so new about that?

She wearily made her way up the stairs, her footsteps sounding empty and hollow in the large house. She didn't see Alex's car in the driveway, so she had no idea where he was and Izzie's bedroom door was opened as she passed it, her bed empty.

She walked to her door and swung it open, freezing at the sight that greeted her. An empty bed. A perfectly made up bed, that hadn't been slept in for a few days. She hadn't realized how long it had been since she was home, but now she realized it. And she remembered that the last time she had slept in that bed, Derek had been with her. She closed her eyes and swallowed.

_And the days feel like years when I'm alone,_

_And the bed where you lie, is made up on your side. _

Derek stumbled into his trailer, tossing the keys down on the counter as he kicked his shoes off and pulled on his tie. He shrugged his coat off before collapsing on his bed. After Meredith had… after the wedding, he'd gone to Joe's and had his fair share of scotch. Mark had found him and taken him home, grumbling the whole way about how he needed to find a place with an address. His mind flooded with the memory of her walking away from him… she'd left him at the alter. He snorted at that thought and rolled over in the bed, groaning. He closed his eyes but they immediately snapped open, as every time he closed them he saw her walking away from him.

_When you walk away, _

_I count the steps that you take,_

_do you see how much I need you right now?_

She cracked her eyes open, forcing the memories that flooded her mind away from her, trying to keep them at arms length. She slowly continued into the room, walking to her dresser and opening the drawer carefully, ignoring the section of the drawer that belonged to him. She pulled out a pair of pajama pants and an old shirt, shutting the door quickly with an almost slamming force, anything to get his clothes out of her sight. She'd have to return them at some point she knew… the amount that was there now was more than what he had left there when Addison had stormed in to reclaim him as her husband.

She went to her private bathroom, her door on the handle, the metal cool beneath her hot skin. _**"We can take it slow… we can take it incredibly slow…."**_

Shaking her head to get rid of the memory she opened the door forcefully and stepped inside. She really had no idea why she was changing in there, it wasn't like anybody was going to walk in on her. And even when she'd had somebody to walk in on her she didn't mind. If Derek had walked in on her it could quite possibly have led to amazing, mind blowing sex. As he claimed, she always got so cute and flustered when he caught her naked, and he could never resist her then. But then, when could he ever?

Perhaps she had chosen to change in the bathroom to torture herself with the memories that it held. The happy, _**bright and shiny**_ memories.

_When you're gone, the pieces of my heart are missing you, _

_when you're gone, the face I came to know is missing too, _

_when you're gone, the words I need to hear,_

_to always get me through the day, and make it ok, _

_I miss you. _

Derek re-collapsed onto his bed after changing out of his stuffy suit. He used to love that suit; in fact, he'd spent the last few months loving that suit as it was the one that he had worn to prom, the night he and Meredith had given in to the inevitable and shared their passion with one another after so many months. Now, only a few months later, he found himself hating it, and he knew that he would never be able to look at it again without hearing her words echo in his head. _**"It's over… you can all go home… it's over… **_**so**_** over…."**_

His fist clenched with frustration and his chest tightened painfully, his body tingling with pain and emotion as he remembered the scene. Why the hell did it have to hurt this bad? Never in his entire life had anything hurt him this badly. Admittedly, he had never loved Addison like he loved, wait, loves, Meredith, but still… he ended his marriage! She slept with his best friend, his brother! Shouldn't he have felt something? Shouldn't it have been painful? More than it was anyway, he wouldn't deny that it did hurt to end eleven years of his life, to have that kind of… betrayal brought upon him. Meredith was his on again/off again girlfriend from the past year, his _**mistress**_, even though she was so much more.

_I've never felt this way before, _

_everything that I do reminds me of you._

Meredith left the bathroom as quickly as possible. The entire time she'd been in there she felt as if she were suffocating. She swore that she could hear his footsteps resonating throughout the house, his laugh, his voice. She kept turning around, expecting to find him there. _**"From now on, you can always expect me to show up. Even when I yell, even when you yell, I'm always gonna show up. Ok?"**_ But he couldn't show up now… she'd ended things. After her she chose him, after he finally chose her, after he admitted his mistake in picking Addison in the first place, she ended them. _**Them**_. She picked up a brush from her bureau and ran it through her hair automatically, staring at herself in her mirror but not really, her gaze was too unfocused, she didn't see anything. Perhaps it was good that she didn't, because if she had seen herself, she would have hated the image, the sight of herself reinforcing the hate that she felt for herself. She turned around and walked towards her bed, but she stumbled on the way, her brush falling to the floor. She muttered incomprehensibly for a moment before sitting down on the edge of the bed and picking it up, jumping when she felt her fingers brush against something soft. She pulled on the item and when she saw it she froze, swallowing thickly.

It was Derek's blue t-shirt, the one he often wore to bed… the one he had been wearing not two weeks earlier. She held it on her lap for a moment, not moving. It was as if she were afraid to move because any sudden movement would cause her to suddenly break. She'd realize she didn't have it all, she was finally completely alone. Her friends were there, that was true, but currently she was completely alone. She had never really been that way, even growing up. Admittedly Ellis was never really there for her as she thought a mother should have been, but if she needed her, _**truly needed her**_ she would have been there for Meredith.

She swallowed once more and slowly ran her fingers over his shirt. She pressed her lips together and slowly curled her fingers into the material. She lifted it from her lap and bent her head down a little, pausing before pressing the fabric to her face. She closed her eyes and inhaled shakily, feeling tears form in her eyes as she smelt his scent. Her chest tightened painfully and she fell slowly back onto the bed, holding the shirt tight to her.

"What'd I do, what'd I do, what'd I do…" she whimpered softly over and over again.

_And the clothes you left, they lie on the floor, _

_and they smell just like you, I love the things that you do._

What was wrong with him? Derek Shepherd prided himself on being kind, helpful, and numerous other things that women loved, wanted, needed, that people in general appreciated. Addison had boasted about him to her Park Avenue friends when they first started going out, and she'd continued to do so, to anyone who would listen, well into their marriage. Then he meets a girl, no, a woman, who makes his world turn upside down and inside out before spinning in a counterclockwise direction. And they both had screwed it up, at different times admittedly, but they both had a share in all of the hardships they had been through.

As Derek lay there, he thought that finally, Meredith must have come upon the conclusion that he wasn't good enough for her, that she wanted the better guy… something he'd known all along. And he almost…_**almost**_ didn't blame her… almost. Hell, he'd say or think anything if it meant he could have her in his arms again, with the right to call her his.

_When you walk away, _

_I count the steps that you take, _

_do you see how much I need you right now? _

Meredith sobbed on her bed without tears, still clutching the shirt just as desperately as when she'd first touched it. It was the painful, dry kind of sob that people can only do once they've truly run out of tears to cry. Stuck in between crying and not crying, the tears are so close to falling yet they don't. Memories seemed to attack her, everything from waking up with Derek in her bed, his arms wrapped around as he held her tiny body tight to his chest, to lazy kisses they had exchanged while she was curled up in his arms on the couch, his hands moving over every little curve in her body. She rubbed the soft fabric over her cheek, blinking rapidly, soft whimpers escaping her every now and then.

_When you're gone, the pieces of my heart are missing you, _

_when you're gone, the face I came to know is missing too, _

_when you're gone, the words I need to hear, _

_to always get me through the day, and make it ok, _

_I miss you. _

Derek didn't know what came over him, but the next moment, his phone was in his hands and he was dialing Meredith's number with shaking fingers. He had to talk to her, he just had to do something. Her voice was in his head anyway, the worst that could happen is that she repeated the words she'd said earlier.

"_**Hi, you've reached Meredith Grey, Izzie Stevens and Alex Karev. We're not here to take your call right now,"**_ the answering machine started and he heard Izzie chime in, _**"Hospital owns us!"**_ before Meredith laughed her sweet, musical laugh and continued. _**"So leave us a message and we'll get back to you when there aren't any more surgeries."**_ The tone went off and he paused for a moment. Did he really want to pour his heart out over the phone to a message that she would most likely delete without even hearing?

A tiny voice interrupted his thoughts. _**"You don't know that she'll do that,"**_ it said and he sighed before clearing his throat. "Hello Meredith, it's Derek," he started in a slightly gruff voice; even he was alarmed by how miserable he sounded. "I was just calling to say…."

_We were made for each other, _

_out here forever, I know we were,_

_Yea-eah! _

"…_**so leave a message after the beep,"**_

Meredith bit her lip before speaking. "Hey Der, it's me… I know you're probably wondering why I'm calling you…" she paused, not sure what to say. _**She**_ wasn't even sure why she was calling him. "I honestly don't know," she said quietly. "I just…" of course the tears would pick _**now**_ to make their way down her face. She sniffled a little and wiped quickly at them, even though no one could see them. "I'm sorry… for everything. I never meant to keep you at arms length… it's just…" she stopped. "I can't tell you, not now, not over the phone. Which probably ruins the whole purpose of this phone call, except it doesn't because I really wanted to hear your voice," her voice came dangerously close to breaking on the last few words. She sniffled again and took a deep breath. "And I would have talked to you at work or something, but I didn't think that you'd want to speak to me much less look at me or be in the same room as me. Which is going to be pretty difficult since I'm going into neuro…"

_And all I ever wanted was for you to know,_

_everything I do I give my heart and soul,_

_I can hardly breathe, I need to feel you hear with me, yeah!_

"I… I believe in soul mates, Mer. And you're it. I know that I made a mistake with Addison, probably in more ways than one… but I think that if that hadn't happened, and if she hadn't cheated on me, I never would have met you. I would have never met my soul mate."

Derek sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Look, I get that you're messed up… but you're not Mer. Let me show you, let me help you become bright and shiny… I want that with you. Hell I'll even settle for dull and lifeless, but it won't be, not really, not as long as I'm with you," he said.

_When you're gone, the pieces of my heart are missing you,_

_when you're gone, the face I cam to know is missing too,_

"Bottom line is that I miss you," Meredith said. "So… just call me or something…" she was about to hang up but the next three words came tumbling from her mouth before she could press the button. "I love you…" she said quietly.

_when you're gone, the words I need to hear, _

_to always get me through, the day,_

_and make it ok,_

"… I'm willing to work on this, I am, more than I ever was with Addison… that's," he paused and sighed. "That's a bad example though. Because I was never willing to work on it with her, not really. Because there was you. But there is no other you, so… I need to fix this."

"Look… the bottom line is that I love you, and I miss you. So call me when you get this… bye."

_I miss you…._

GAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA

_**Ok, so I KNOW that might have been a little confusing with all the cutting in and out that I did. Sorry about that!! I tried to make it as easy to read as I could, and I guess I could have written it a different way it's just that… I really, really, really, really, REALLY wanted to write it this way… almost like a video. And I would have made a video except that there aren't any clips to make it with and I also don't know how to, lol. **_

_**Well, there you have it! A nice one shot. Hope you enjoyed it! It's possible that this could be turned into a two shot at some point… but if it is, it definitely won't be anytime soon. I have wayyy too much on my plate at the moment, lol. If you liked this, just check out my other stories! **_

_**Thanks for reading, and please, please review!**_

_**Ta-ta for now!**_


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